


All They Needed

by veiledndarkness



Category: Friday Night Lights
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-18
Updated: 2008-03-18
Packaged: 2020-10-24 08:58:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20703341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veiledndarkness/pseuds/veiledndarkness
Summary: You were only waiting for this moment to be free...





	All They Needed

**Author's Note:**

> Written before the end of the series. Think of it as a slight AU.

Author: veiledndarkness

Title: All They Needed

Rating: PG

Pairing: Tim/Lyla

Summary: _You were only waiting for this moment to be free..._

Warnings: Not mine, no harm intended, no profit made.

xx

When Tim comes home from work one day, four years after graduating high school, it's with a definite amount of surprise to find _Lyla Garrity_ of all people perched on his sofa, her white sundress so out of place with the general mess and clutter around her. He stops in his tracks, too surprised to even think to question how she got inside at first, until he remembers the spare key that's hidden under the half dead planter on the veranda.

She offers no explanation and Tim doesn't ask.

xx

She stays that first night, sleeping in Tim's bed at his insistence. He thinks fleetingly of her family and if they know where she is. He sleeps on the couch, half prepared to hear the sound of the front door opening and closing. He eventually falls asleep despite his efforts.

Lyla watches him sleep for a few minutes, a look of sadness to her eyes.

xx

It's an odd arrangement, one that Tim spends as little time thinking about as possible. He leaves in the morning each day, goes to work at his construction job. He comes home to find Lyla still there, a simple meal prepared for dinner. She cleans each day and gradually his house begins to look a hell of a lot nicer. He doesn't ask her to do it, she just does.

Lyla begins wearing Tim's old jerseys to sleep in, the material soft and worn-out. He can't think of a reason to protest.

xx

They spend hours in near silence, which Tim doesn't mind at all. He's never been the most talkative, and this Lyla is different somehow from the Lyla that dated his best friend. This Lyla cleans and cooks for him, treats him for all intents and purposes as a husband, and Tim finds that it suits him just fine as well. She smiles when he asks how her day went, her enigmatic smile that tells him everything and nothing.

They slip into this odd relationship, both only mildly startled by how comfortable it feels.

xx

Eventually Tim stops fearing the day that he’ll wake up to find her gone, all traces erased from his home. Lyla sifts through the sparse photo albums that Tim's mother had kept, his mother's attempts to make their history known forgotten when she fled his father's fists for the last time. He sits beside Lyla when she asks him to, his childhood on display for her, though she must have known the basics. People will talk.

And people do talk, whispers of _Lyla Garrity_, staying with a Riggins. She shrugs them off, but he hurts for her.

xx

Tim finds Lyla watching him sleep on the couch one night. He looks back at her silently, the unspoken question in his eyes. She dips her head to the side, one shoulder visible in his old jersey, the material far too large for her small frame. He takes her to his bed, her scent on his sheets, her dark hair spilling over the blue cotton, gleaming in the moonlight that pours through the window blinds.

She spends the night cradled in his arms, fragile somehow, but with a broken strength under her skin. He knows it even if she doesn't speak of it.

xx

She kisses him one day, surprising them both. He leans into the kiss, something he's always had in the back of his mind. She kisses him with a sort of desperation, with ferocity in her kisses that he wouldn't expect from her. He holds her close, their bodies sinking onto his bed. She tugs the jersey off and presses against him and he thinks of how fragile she feels now, how strong she'd felt only five years before.

Afterwards, she lies in his arms, her hand entwined with his, her eyes looking out the window, a quiet murmur passing her lips. He kisses her hand and holds her closer, no words needed. He thinks he might have been wrong, that it was just this moment that she needed or wanted. And maybe they're both free now.

xx


End file.
